Technologist Salaries Rose 3.6% in 2020 – Dice Releases Tech Salary Report

Dice, a DHI Group, Inc. brand, released The Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report, its annual report featuring in-depth information on technology salary and compensation trends across the United States. Despite the economic impact of the pandemic in 2020, this year’s edition presents promising trends for technologists, with the average U.S. technology industry annual salary hitting $97,859, up 3.6% from 2019.

The Dice Tech Salary Report is designed to help employers and recruiters stay up-to-date on the tech hiring and retention landscape, and provides technologists with the information they need to better understand their market value and how to position themselves for career growth. The report is based on a survey of more than 9,000 technologists, and includes data and analysis on salary by location, occupation, skill and experience level, as well as technologist perception on compensation-related items, such as salary satisfaction and benefits received.

“The release of the Dice Tech Salary Report is one of my favorite things we do as an organization each year, as it helps empower more informed connections between skilled technologists and recruiters looking to hire,” shared Art Zeile, CEO of DHI Group, Inc., parent company of Dice. “In this year’s report, it’s encouraging to see significant salary growth for data-related occupations and roles supporting digital transformation. The ongoing demand for technologists is also reflected in the compensation growth across both traditional and emerging tech hubs.”

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Established and Emerging Tech Hubs Bustle to Meet Demand 

The nation’s technologists in both established and emerging tech hubs saw their salaries increase significantly during 2020, although the nation’s most prominent tech hubs are still the destination for technologists seeking the highest salaries. In New York City, the average technologist salary rose 11.6% between 2019 and 2020, hitting $114,274. Boston salaries have reached $111,069, while Silicon Valley’s average pay stands at $126,801, making it the highest-paying tech hub in the U.S. Boston and Silicon Valley both achieved salary growth of 2.4%, cementing their status as established tech hubs. In Austin, salaries rose 9.7% to $104,344 during the same period.

Emerging tech hubs also saw some of the highest growth during the year, including areas like Charlotte (+13.8% to $99,691), Orlando (+13.4% to $88,598), Detroit (+7.7%, to $90,110) and Houston (+7.1%, to $99,727), where local officials have been working to bolster the tech scene for many years.

Average Tech Salaries by Tech Hub
Metro	2020	2019-2020 % Change
Silicon Valley, CA	$126,801	2.4%
New York City, NY	$114,274	11.6%
Boston, MA	$111,069	2.4%
San Diego, CA	$109,910	0.4%
Baltimore/D.C.	$109,525	5.5%
Seattle, WA	$106,723	-2.6%
Denver, CO	$104,968	2.4%
Austin, TX	$104,344	9.7%
Los Angeles, CA	$103,150	5.4%
Minneapolis, MN	$102,341	6.6%
Source: The Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report – www.dice.com

 

Fastest Growing Tech Salaries 2019-2020
Metro	2019-2020 % Change
Charlotte, NC	13.8%
Orlando, FL	13.4%
New York City, NY	11.6%
Austin, TX	9.7%
Philadelphia, PA	8.3%
Detroit, MI	7.7%
Phoenix, AZ	7.6%
Houston, TX	7.1%
Minneapolis, MN	6.6%
Baltimore/D.C.	5.5%
Source: The Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report – www.dice.com

At the state level, Texas continues its rise to prominence as a premier tech state (+5.6% YoY), sparking conversations about competition with California (+1.9% YoY) as a primary hub. Both states’ tech hubs saw high salaries and steady increases, but Texas boasts an influx of prestigious companies building new headquarters, including Oracle and Tesla.

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Remote Work Adaptation, Digitization Remain Top Priority

The occupations and skills that saw the largest salary increases between 2019 and 2020 were those that helped organizations organize and analyze data, digitize and otherwise evolve their product offerings, and ensure that their organizations remained efficient, profitable, safe and secure during the pandemic.

“As employers adapted to the pandemic by quickly shifting to remote work, we saw immediate needs for technologists skilled in preparing entire offices and teams to go virtual, and for cybersecurity experts to secure new cloud networks,” said Michelle Marian, CMO of DHI Group, Inc., parent company of Dice. “As a result of dispersed teams and networks due to the massive adoption of remote work, the need for cybersecurity and cloud-based roles grew significantly in 2020, with cybersecurity analysts seeing the largest salary growth during the year.”

Cybersecurity Analyst saw an average salary increase to $103,106 in 2020 (+16.3%) and Cloud Engineer roles grew 6.3% to $136,479 in 2020. The prevalence of remote work likely also had an impact on Technical Support Engineer salaries, which rose to $68,651 in 2020 (+8.2%). As many organizations reacted quickly to changing circumstances on account of the pandemic, the need to develop and implement long-term strategies has positively impacted Business Analyst salaries, which increased 5.3% to $97,633 in 2020. Driven by the need to rapidly transform digital stacks, Web Developer saw an average salary increase to $81,550 year-over-year (+4.9%), Software Developer increased 1.9% to $111,297 and DevOps Engineer roles grew 12.2% to $115,125.

Select occupations saw growth due to longer-term needs unrelated to the pandemic. With data becoming increasingly valuable to businesses across nearly every industry, the demand has swelled for Data Scientists (+12.8% to $119,898 in 2020) who can successfully analyze data in ways that executives and employees can use to drive business evolution and growth. Similarly, salaries associated with Data Engineers, who are largely responsible for building out and maintaining data infrastructure, increased by 4.7% to $118,621 in 2020.

Average Salaries by Occupation
Job Title	2020	2019-2020 % Change
Systems Architect	$140,658	1.7%
Cloud Engineer	$136,479	6.3%
Cybersecurity Engineer	$134,340	4.3%
Data Architect*	$133,064	3.2%
Program Manager	$122,818	N/A
Management Consultant	$121,619	N/A
Product Manager	$120,584	-0.6%
Data Scientist*	$119,898	12.8%
MIS Manager	$119,877	2.5%
Data Engineer	$118,621	4.7%
* Sample size less than 100 respondents, therefore not statistically valid, but presented for continuity purposes only.
Source: The Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report – www.dice.com

 

Highest Average Salaries by Skill
Skill	2020 Salary	2019-2020 % Change
RabbitMQ	$136,151	10.1%
MapReduce	$135,516	2.1%
Mockito	$133,261	1.1%
Service Oriented Architecture	$133,119	1.2%
PAAS	$132,314	1.3%
Cloudera	$132,045	-1.2%
Artificial Intelligence	$131,907	7.2%
Natural Language Processing	$131,542	4.8%
Cassandra	$130,491	-1.5%
Elasticsearch	$129,480	-0.4%
Source: The Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report – www.dice.com

Access the Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report 

• Journalists: Email dicemedia@dice.com for a press-only PDF
• Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report for Employers/Recruiters
• Dice 2021 Tech Salary Report for Technologists

Read more on Dice Insights: U.S. Technologist Salaries Rose 3.6% in 2020: Dice Tech Salary Report

Methodology 
The 2020 Dice Salary Survey was administered online by Dice.com among its registered Dice job seekers and site visitors between September 29, 2020 and December 9, 2020. Respondents were invited to participate in the survey in two ways: 1) via an email invitation to Dice’s registered (“searchable”) database members and 2) through a notification on Dice.com via “pop-up” (i.e., site intercept). A total of 9,143 survey completes are represented in this report (this number excludes unemployed respondents, students, incomplete responses, and those who work outside of the US). Additional weighting, COVID-related methodology and job posting data are available within the report.

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